It's been a little less than 50 years since the Beatles appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show February 9th, 1964 and changed our lives forever. The Beatles started their professional careers with a trip to Hamburg, Germany in August of 1960. I'm going to post to this blog what the Beatles were doing 50 years ago to the day from just before that first tour until the historic Ed Sullivan appearance. "Follow by email" for ongoing updates. (Eternal thanks to Mark Lewisohn.)

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Pay Stubs and Platters

June 23, 1961

Tony Sheridan and the Beatles

The Beatles played their usual gig last night, wrapping up at 3 am, and headed to Polydor Studios to finish their recording session with Bert Kaempfert. Then they head back to the Top Ten for their week's pay envelope and tonight's show.

Today is one of the few dates that can be known with certainty during the Beatles' second Hamburg trip. Here is a link to some amazing images. The first shows the signatures of the Beatles on a payment receipt for the Top Ten club dated in the European fashion at the top. (How'd you like to have THAT in your Beatles memorabilia collection!) Scroll down for some photographic images of the band on stage at the Top Ten. Note Paul's brand new Hofner violin-shaped bass in the second and fourth image. George is still playing his Futurama. Also note that Stu Sutcliffe is still with them and they are sporting two bass guitarists! Sam Leach testifies that Stuart's bass guitar was left unplugged during this time and was only for show.

Tony Sheridan remembers that they wanted to use Paul's bass on the recording sessions and worried for a while about how to break the news to Stuart. Stuart solved their problem for them by graciously announcing that he was going to pursue an artistic career full time with his scholarship at the Hamburg College of Art.

If you've got a few minutes, watch this wonderful video of Sam, one of the most important behind the scenes Beatle people. It was made at the Grapes Public House, across Matthew Street from the site of the Cavern in Liverpool. In it he reminisces about working with them in the early '60s. It's not difficult to see why there might have been some bad blood between Stuart and Paul.

About Me

After a 30 year career in IT, I got a retirement offer from Ford Motor Company that was too good to pass up. Since then I've been devoting my time to enjoying life, especially through reading, biking and music. I'm a member, with Alison Donahue, of the Guitar/Cello Duo called "Cello Bella" and the Beatles tribute band, The Buntles. (We don't get smash hits, but we can usually bunt our way on base!)